6 month old baby won’t sleep long than an hour

[Charlottef93]

Hi all, just after any advice .. I have a 6 month old and 2 year old. My 6 month old is exclusively breastfed and he slept well for the first 2 months only waking once or twice but after that it’s been literally every hour. He wakes up crying and the only thing to settle him is boobs. He has an umbilical hernia which obviously disapprared when he was seen by paediatrician but you can hear it like gargling when he feeds so don’t know if that’s anything to do with it. He’s also quite windy - tried gripe water that doesn’t do anything. He hates being out down but he’s still waking every hour at best if I cuddle him to sleep (my anxiety of squashing him wouldn’t allow me to sleep with him). Anyone else had this ? X

That must be exhausting. Does your partner sometimes take the baby out so you can get some decent sleep?

Does baby sleep in the car if you go for a drive?

Thanks for your reply! There isn’t much time left in the day when he gets home from work but he’ll take both children for a bath and read a book before bed ! The baby won’t settle unless feeding from me ! He’s hit and miss in the car, he’ll either go off immediately and be out for the count for the journey or he’ll scream the whole journey 😂 x

My 6 month old has also gone to waking hourly and only doing 30 mins naps in the day. He will do longer naps if in the buggy or the carrier (but that doesn't help me get more sleep 🫠)

He wakes hourly from bedtime at about 7.30 but then we do cosleep from about 11pm and he does a good stretch. That's the only advice I have although you said you didn't want to do that, for us it's the only way we can get any sleep!

have you got a health visitor? go see them and explain about the lack of sleep (emphasize that it is making you ill & is dangerous for you & kids) and the umbilical hernia. she will know if / how the hernia can be treated. if baby is in pain, that could be the explanation for the sleep trouble.

Both mine did this, and both were (and are) healthy. No idea why. Things that helped were a dose of Calpol before bed, so possibly it was teething related? Obviously couldn't do this every night for months so we just did it on nights when I was extra tired. Also weaning helped. Slow but steady improvement from weaning at six months until maybe 8/9 months when wakings were back to a nice normal 3 per night. Bliss!

So obviously get the hernia issue checked, but if that's not the problem maybe just power on with weaning and hopefully that helps. If you want to try Calpol you could do one night and see if it helps? Is your DC teething or pre-teething yet?

Thanks so much, reassuring it’s not just us 😂 xx

HVs always too busy to come out and tend to suggest GP or something ! Xx

He does seem to be teething and has seemed like that for the last 4 months but no sign of teeth yet 🤨😂 also had right trouble with the latch and he still just pulls sometimes causing me pain but it is what it is ! He seems healthy in himself - lots and lots of wees from all he drinks and plenty of poop! He just doesn’t like to sleep 😂 thank you!! Xx

I’m not sure if this is what you want to hear but I was you four months ago and in fact posted several times on mumsnet asking for advice. At 10 months old he has now started waking only twice at night which feels incredible. I did nothing different to be honest, just persevered. One thing I would say is instead of focusing purely on how to get more sleep, think about how you can make your lives easier during this tough phase. We got a lot of ready meals, batch cooked etc so we could have quick dinners and then I could go to bed early. Partner sleeps in spare room so then takes baby and toddler in the morning for a bit. Don’t stress too much about sleeping while baby sleeps but DO prioritise rest. In short do what you have to do to survive!